


Fear, Falling, Fumbling

by atqi



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:12:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3119762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atqi/pseuds/atqi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He did not know how long, how many days or weeks or years or centuries it took, but he came across a land dominated by scuttling shapes, grotesque spiders that cried ‘Leto, Leto, Leto' in his sister's voice."</p>
<p>After a slaver ship raid turns sour for him, Fenris finds himself in the Fade. Post-Admant. Spoilers for Dragon Age: Inquisition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear, Falling, Fumbling

The letter was tucked into a pouch in Fenris’ belt beside a bundle of dried elfroot. The parchment was torn around the edges, fraying and creased in the places where it had been curled and uncurled over and over.

It twisted in Fenris’ satchel as he sprinted up the gangplank of the slaver ship. He pivoted on one leg and his greatsword tore a Tevinter torso to tatters. The man fell back into the water with a splash.

The freed slaves were dirty, wrists raw and bleeding where the cuffs had pulled at them day and night. Most had broken fingers or feet, some were missing their ears, or their tongues. They scrambled desperately beside Fenris, fleeing for their lives from the silver swords of the slavers. Fenris kept them at bay from the gangplank for a while, but when the last of the slaves had boarded the Champion, he heard a call from above deck.

"Fenris, we’re casting off!" Came Merrill’s voice, high and bright above the clashing of the waves. He didn’t raise his head, instead his eyes were fixed on the slaver ship deck. There was a boy among the wounded, the broken bodies of slavers and slaves alike. Small hands, pointed ears, his left leg bleeding, mouth open in a cry that Fenris couldn’t hear but felt in the pit of his stomach.

He grunted, hefted his sword over his shoulder, and leaped like a wraith back towards the bloody ship. A slaver archer raised an arrow and lost his arm to a bright blue slash of sword, lyrium, and enraged elf.

Fenris scooped up the sobbing child and swung the boy onto his back. He clung tightly, little hand twisting in the pirate regalia.

“Fenris, you daft tit, get back here!” The Admiral’s voice rang out, high and clear and with the tiniest hint of a hitch of worry. Fenris spun on his heel and felt the groan of the slaver ship as its hull cracked. He sprinted to the gangplank and just about hurled the slave boy into Merrill’s waiting arms. Rocks rose from the sea, summoned by one of the hedge mages aboard the pirate ship. They sent a sailor swordsman sailing into the air, but not the archer who had given chase.

“Fenris!” Was the last word he heard before the barbed arrowhead embedded itself in the base of his skull. He fell into the water without a word, crying out, a harsh, deep red slash of of pain and a gurgle of blood. His thoughts were formless flashes of light amid the swirling blackness of the water. The water soaked into the parchment of the letter, washing the words away, but not the memory.

Fenris awoke to the smell of pine and the sound of soft giggling. He was laying on his stomach, his cheek pressed into a fluffy blue blanket. There were sheets, as well, deep burgundy and edged with gold embroidery. Sun poured in from a window, opened wide. The sky was sapphire blue and heavy with fluffy white clouds.

He rolled onto his back, then felt a weight thud against his belly. Two children with short black hair peered up at him, leaning on his torso on their tiny elbows. They reached out little tan hands to tug at his arms and shoulders.

"Wake up, daddy!" Exclaimed one, headbutting Fenris’ shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her and brought her in close to kiss her forehead.

"You can’t sleep all day!" Said the little boy, clamoring up to join his sister, pressed up against Fenris’ chest. They had bright smiles and tiny hands, soft from lives of leisure. He sat up, taking the children with you.

"Where is your mother?" He asked, his voice devoid of the usual scratchy rumble. He turned and placed his feet on the floor. There was a mirror in the corner of the room, rimmed in gold with intricate carvings. When he looked in the mirror he saw himself, a black-haired elf with a hard jawline and two cheerful pointy-eared children hanging off of him.

"Mama’s gone to market, she’ll be back soon." Said the girl, sliding to the floor as she stood.

"She said you would show us ice fishing today." Said the boy happily, standing on the bed. He jumped once on the bouncy mattress, gave a sheepish smile, then slid off to join his sister.

The mabari waited in the hall, stumpy tail wagging as he bounded to Fenris for a head scratch. Fenris gave the eager beast a firm pat on his muscly neck and continued into the large main room. The cabin was modest, but had everything a growing family could need. Two identical sets of baby’s boots hung above the mantle.

Fenris knelt down in front of the fireplace to stoke the dimly glowing embers. Behind him, he heard the cabin door creak in protest as it swung open. He stood again and turned.

There was Hawke, bundled up to her ears in furs and carrying two large sacks under her arms. Her smile was as bright and beautiful as the children’s, and there were tiny snowflakes caught in her hair.

"Are you having trouble with that fire again?" She asked, crouching down to put down her bundles as the children raced to give her kisses, demanding stories about the market and the snow. The mabari sniffed at the door frame and the bundles she had left behind.

"It appears so." He said, feet heavy as if he were rooted to the ground. Hawke stood, ruffling the children’s hair, and crossed the room to stand beside him. She leaned in to kiss him and at first he moved not at all.

She was familiar, he was happy, the children were laughing, the little boy climbed atop the mabari as if he were a Ferelden charger. Hawke’s lips were smooth, scarless as he was. She raised a hand to caress his jaw and her fingers were devoid of callouses. He raised a hand to rest it on her wrist and felt no pain, no throb in his skin and blood.

But why should he? They were so happy, she was so beautiful, the children were healthy and strong, and the dog didn’t smell like a Kirkwall alley. She pulled away from him with a warm smile and knelt down beside the fireplace.

"There were fresh apples in the market today," She said, probing the embers with a wrought iron fire poker. "I think we’ll be able to make pies for when our friends come to visit. Tch." Her brow furrowed. "Fenris? Have you seen the firesteel?"

"Can you not light it yourself, Hawke?" Fenris asked absently, adjusting one of the frames on the mantle. The faces in the portraits were fuzzy, when he looked at them for too long, dark shapes swam on the edges of his vision. He turned to look at her, expecting the spark of flame to come from her fingertips.

"The firesteel, Fenris?" She asked, as if she hadn’t heard him. She set the poker back down in its.

"You’re a poor mage, if you can’t light a fire." He replied lightly.

"It isn’t that cold, anyhow." She said, standing and brushing past him with a light huff. She went to the children and lifted them both up in her arms, turning to him with her smile wide but rimmed with green. "Come back to bed, Fenris, we can all keep close to stay warm."

Sick to his stomach, Fenris had already stooped to grab the poker, he brandished it towards her with both hands. Behind him, the fire flashed and crackled, roaring in protest. The cabin was cast in bright orange light.

"Fenris?" Asked Hawke, clutching the children to her chest. He remembered fear, falling, fumbling, scrambling for breath and feeling only white hot pain and icy cold death in his chest.

“Demon.” He snarled. The children screamed in fear as he lunged forward, the mabari leaped forward, eyes black with rage, it’s teeth clamped around his forearm as the poker tore through Hawke's chest. She gasped in horror, choked, coughed blood that dribbled from both corners of her mouth, thick and green and wrong.

The edges of his vision went green, the mabari and the children lost their color, then turned to black and crumbled away to ash with inhuman screams. Hawke shuddered and gripped his forearms.

"W-why?" It whimpered, voice thick with blood. "W-we were so h-happy-"

"Hawke was a mage." Fenris growled, looking directly into the desire demon’s pale golden eyes, "And I only _wanted_ another child.” He jerked free from the desire demon’s grip and let her fall to the uneven ground.

He was standing in a cave that seemed to have been carved out of obsidian, murky green water rose to his knees. The desire demon sunk below the surface of the water, then exploded into a thousand wrigling black tadpole-like creatures that swam curiously towards the glowing marks on Fenris’ legs, but darted away after touching them, as if they had been burned.

He trudged out of the cave and into the open air of the Fade. In the distance, he saw the Black City suspended in the sickly green sky. He supposed that he was dead, but he didn’t feel dead. He felt the same. Strained muscles, slight ache in the temples, a sharp pain where the mabari had bit him, and the searing heat of his tattoos. No matter what he did, they continued to glow. Normally, if he controlled his breathing, his emotions, he could at least dim them, but not so now.

His sword was heavy on his back, a familiar weight that was almost comforting. He resolved that he would walk as far as his legs would carry him. If this existence proved endless, he would leap from the edge of the platform he was currently on, and see what lay at the bottom of the fade.

He could not tell how long or how far he traveled. As he walked, he was attacked by gibbering monstrosities, tempted by yet more desire demons that sauntered up to him with strange half-masks of Hawke’s face, though he killed them every time. Curious wisps were attracted by the glowing of his tattoos, a spirit of faith with pointed ears and sad eyes seemed tempted to speak to him, but turned away when he did not understand its garbled speech.

Once, he thought he saw the figure of a man on an outcropping high above him, but there was no way for him to approach it, so continued onward, trying to put the strange shape among stranger shapes out of his mind.

He did not know how long, how many days or weeks or years or centuries it took, but he came across a land dominated by scuttling shapes, grotesque spiders that cried ‘ _Leto, Leto, Leto_ ' in his sister's voice. He cut them down and continued on.

There were slashes of bright golden light across the landscape. In the distance, he saw a great green shape writhe and roar to tiny shapes impossible to make out. A single dot of light approached the shape and for a brief moment shined brighter than any light that he had ever seen in his life, both the one he had lived and the one he had forgotten.

The next moment he was sliding down a slope on his backside, his sword throwing out sparks as it slid against the greenish obsidian. The enormous shape dipped below the horizon, revealing a bright green crack in the air overhead. He was drawn to it. He fell to his knees at the bottom of the cliff but leaped to his feet, breaking into a sprint.

The enormous shape rose again, a hideous beast with too many eyes and too many limbs, it obscured the light and gave him pause. On the ground, shapes darted past the beast, leaving one in its wake.

Five figures slipped through the crack in the sky and a sixth raised its arms, bellowing its rage and darted forward, slamming into the great beast with a roar and a flash of fire that nearly blinded him. He saw a flash of red and felt a tidal wave hit his chest. He knew that magic.

His tattoos seared him and his muscles seemed to creak in protest, but he sprinted forward with the force of a lightning bolt and soon he was upon Hawke and the monstrous fear demon. She swung her staff high and to the left, twisting to the right, her side exposed. Fenris raced forward and fell into step beside her, joining in the dance that he had ached for since he had received Varric’s crumpled parchment.

She spun to cut a gash across the creature’s jowls with a scythe of her blood and for a single instant their eyes connected. Then she was laughing, crowing death and victory, swooping down into a crouch to let the blade of mercy slice the sickly green flesh above her head. She said no words, but darted around the battlefield with Fenris at her side, twirling her staff and lighting up the fade with flashes of electricity and blood that rivaled the skies in their brilliance.

Once by one they pierced the creature’s eyes and were baptized by gushing fountains of black blood. Neither seemed to care. Together they cut again and again and finally the mass lurched to its side. Hawke and Fenris leaped from the corpse as it slid off the edge of the floating rocks.

Hawke’s staff and the blade of mercy clattered to the rocks. She moved first, embracing him with all of the strength left in her. Fenris grunted and threw his arms around her middle.

"Fenris-" She gasped breathlessly, her cheek pressed to the side of his head. "What are you doing here?”

"Hawke-" He began, but just tipped his head up, kissing her hard on the mouth. They stayed that way for a very long time, breathless and sore, their faces black with the blood, streaks of tears on both faces.

They separated after a time, and deemed the murky waters not exactly acceptable for washing, but better than anything else they’d likely find. Hawke scrubbed the demon’s blood from her face and neck, and smeared a streak of her own around her temple, working forbidden magic that soothed the aches in her arms. Her face was tan and spotted with freckles, mixed with ruddy patches on her cheeks and forehead, damage from the sun.

"I died." Fenris said, pulling on one of his gauntlets. "I must have, on the ship, but that does not explain- Varric was with you, you said. But I received a letter from him saying that you died."

"Time moves funny in the Fade, you know that." Replied Hawke, stooping down lace her boot. "Doesn’t explain why you aren’t a spirit or at the very least, spirit-ey."

"Could be the lyrium." He said, with the same intonation as he might describe an effective method of killing cockroaches. Hawke let out a laugh that came out sounding like a huff of breath.

"Whatever it was, I’m glad you’re here." She said softly. She stood and reached for his hand, then looked up at the Black City, still hanging there in the sky. It was the most noteworthy landmark, since the Fade rift had been closed, presumably by the Inquisitor’s hand. After a moment, she turned her head towards him,

"Fenris?"

"Yes, Hawke?"

"Does this mean we’ve left Beth to be raised by Merrill and Isabella?" She asked, a spark of mirth in her eyes.

"She goes by ‘The Admiral’ now, but yes." Fenris replied, and Hawke shook her head.

"Well," She sighed, "At least the dog can be a stabilizing influence until we get back." Fenris’ eyebrows rose. "We’re going back." She added, and he nodded.

"If anyone can find a way, we can." He said firmly, and she smiled.


End file.
